HR 2640, mental committments and all that...

Posted by David Hardy · 13 July 2007 09:38 AM

Clayton Cramer has a take on the bill and, while I haven't puzzled thru all its details, I agree with all the points he makes. It puts more mental health records in the system, but doesn't bar anyone who is not already barred. On the other side, it gives those who are barred (and at the moment a committment is a lifetime bar) an avenue (I think two avenues, but my memory may be off) to get the bar lifted. That alone will benefit two (former) shooters that I know.

Yep, I think it's a big improvement in this area. What formerly was available -- "relief from disability" (to own a gun) granted by BATF (which was actually pretty decent about granting it) has been blocked for over a decade by budget riders forbidding BATF to spend any funds for that purpose. The bill, as I recall, mandates that States create systems so that persons with a committment can get relief that way, and also creates a federal system for VA committments, etc.. It's not called relief from disability, so the budget riders shouldn't affect it.

Do you think that the mechanisms for clearing your name provided in HR2640 will be any more effective or accessible than the mechanisms for clearing your name in the existing NICS law, which Congress has refused to fund?

Its always appropriate to raise objections to these perfectly valid questions. Granted, the man should have kept his mouth shut, A law enforcement officer making a section 302 arrest does not remotely qualify as a valid medical diagnosis.
So, no, geekwitha.45, Gun Owners of America are perfectly credible AND doing the job the mainstream media won't do.

The mechanisms are to be set up by the states as a condition of receiving the federal funding. Removing the funding would just put us back to the current status quo, which GOA would seem to be happy with. Sure, Congress could amend this law later, and remove the disability removal clauses, but they could also pass a law later banning all guns. I don't think it works as a reason for opposing HR2640.

As a policy I abhor the fed dangling a carrot before the states to do what the fed is legally or logistically incapable of.

Recall that the keeping of these records and their use to ban guns was an unfunded mandate which the fed will now finally pay to have.

Some states will not be financially coerced into giving the fed med records of citizens to abuse. I don't trust the local government to abide the law and the bigger the government the more unlikely they are to have your best interests at heart.

What we should be getting for the increased data base and intrusion into personal med recs is universal ccw. And written in stone relief from disability, on the order of a letter from your dr. your sheriff or your significant other that you are free from mental defect and righteously qualified to own a gun. It should take at least court hearing ala Emerson to take your right to guns away and a much much simpler method for relief of disability.

Have any of you noticed that misdemeanors are now felonies the better to take your rights away?

Anyone who cannot see the potential for abuse in this bill is simply too young, too naive, or too hopeful to have a grasp on reality.

Where there is potential for abuse in the workings of government it is absolutely certain to be exploited at some point and to almost never be corrected once the power has accrued to the state.

For all you who think you are reasonable men and find this a reasonable pursuit read the second amendment again. Then tell me that all those 20,000 "reasonable" infringements are not in violation of the constitution and the rights of free Americans. Do you not understand the term "abuse"?

This bill is just one more infringement which is illegal, how the Hell can it be "reasonable"?